At the South Louisiana Ice Processing Center in Basile, detainees say they were forced into hard labor – and sexually assaulted and stalked by an assistant warden

Queer and trans immigrants at a detention facility in south Louisiana have alleged that they faced sexual harassment and abuse, medical neglect and coerced labor by staff at the facility, and that they were repeatedly ignored or faced retaliation for speaking out.

In multiple legal complaints, immigrants detained at the South Louisiana Ice Processing Center (SLIPC) in Basile, Louisiana, said they were recruited into an unsanctioned work program that forced them to perform hard manual labor for as little as $1 per day. Detainees also alleged that queer people were targeted by an assistant warden who stalked, harassed and sexually assaulted them.

Kristalina Georgieva urges vigilance over ‘very significant shift of financing’ after collapse of Tricolor and First Brands

The head of the International Monetary Fund has admitted that worrying about the risks building up in non-bank lending markets keeps her awake at night.

Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday urged countries to pay more attention to the private credit market, after the failure of sub-prime auto lender Tricolor and the car parts supplier First Brands.

As he tours the UK, the musician answers your questions on making Bat Out of Hell with Meat Loaf, squabbles with XTC and the Band, and wiring his studio while high

I Saw the Light is extraordinarily brilliant. How did you write it? Eamonmcc
I was still learning about songwriting and by the time I got to Something/Anything? [1972, featuring I Saw the Light] I was slipping into formula – verse, chorus, bridge and so on, always about the girl or boy who broke your heart. I moved my hands about the keyboard and 20 minutes later that song was done. It’s partly why I went completely off the grid for my next album, A Wizard, a True Star [1973] – because I realised I couldn’t keep cranking out songs in 20 minutes about that one relationship in high school. The prettiest girl in school had suddenly taken a shine to me – I think because I had long hair, which was also the reason her dad made her break up with me, which messed me up pretty bad.

Wikipedia says A Wizard, a True Star was “heavily informed by Rundgren’s hallucinogenic experiences”. Were you actually taking LSD? mjhmjh
I didn’t smoke or drink anything until my first album [Runt, in 1970]. In my first band they’d smoke pot and the rehearsal would turn into a 30-minute giggling session. Then, when I was 21 I was living in [rhythm section] the Sales brothers’ house and their mom said “I can’t believe you’ve never had a drink” and got me drunk. Then my best friend who was studying to be a psychiatrist suggested I try psychoactives. I trusted him implicitly, so I did. I was taking drugs occasionally throughout the building of the studio. Not when we were doing the music – I had to run the sessions – but I remember lying on my back as high as a kite trying to do the wiring. Through psychoactives I discovered there was more going on in my head than that high school relationship.

European court of justice asked to intervene after dog was lost on journey from Buenos Aires to Barcelona

Pets on flights can be classified as baggage, the European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled, meaning airlines are not required to pay higher compensation if the animal is lost.

Europe’s highest court was asked to intervene after a dog was lost during a journey from Buenos Aires to Barcelona, triggering a claim for losses from the owner.

(Linn)
The Kathleen Ferrier award-winning countertenor’s debut recital album showcases his warm tone and effortless musical line – and his originality

In 2021 Hugh Cutting was the first countertenor to win the Kathleen Ferrier award. Since then, he’s been consistently admired for his warm tone, effortless musical line and theatrical originality. His debut recital album continues that trend, but don’t expect the usual lineup of Handel arias or Dowland lute songs. On Refound, a collection of art songs with reinvention at its heart, his choices are eclectic, idiosyncratic even, but also profoundly satisfying.

Connections and parallels abound. Ravel’s reworkings of Greek folk song pair with Vaughan Williams’ Linden Lea, Dvořák’s Biblical Songs mirror Howells’ medieval carol setting, Come Sing and Dance. It’s Cutting’s plush yet flexible voice, however, that ties it all together. His handling of text, a willingness to go deep, and an impeccable musical sensitivity illuminate each song, from Piers Connor Kennedy’s wartime reflections to Tom Lehrer’s Poisoning Pigeons in the Park (sung here as a baritone).

There could be so many different reasons behind this choice, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Maybe what you really mean is you feel hurt to be left out

• Read more Leading questions

My brother and sister-in-law have a new baby a few months old. My sister-in-law won’t let anyone hold the baby, although the grandparents on both sides of the family were allowed one-off holds. At family events, as soon as the baby makes the slightest cry, her mum whips her away to a room as far from everyone else as possible. Usually they leave shortly after that.

No one says anything to her, to avoid confrontation and the “new mum” factor, but only allowing the baby contact with her parents seems like it will build problems later on. It is already difficult in the moment for everyone else, my brother included. The natural inclination is to engage with a very small baby. It’s such a short time they are like that. Already everyone else has been left out – there’s a sense of ownership and that we are all out of bounds. Even in photos, she holds the baby twisted away from everyone else. It feels extreme. Is it? How can I be supportive without feeding that extremeness (if it is)?

Eleanor says: There could be so many different reasons she’s made this choice. It could be about illness. A lot of parents limit visitors or cuddles in the first few months; it just takes one relative forgetting they have a cold or a cold sore. It could be about overstimulation. Maybe she doesn’t want to deal with the possible aftermath of the baby getting overwhelmed by multiple faces, noises, smells. It could be anxiety; maybe all-day-long parenting, books and her postpartum imagination remind her of everything that could go wrong. There could be medical things we don’t know, emotional things we don’t know. It could just be her preference. This decision could be completely neurotic, or completely rational.

Watching my daughter’s strong sense of self has forced me to reflect on my own adolescence through the wildly misogynistic early 2000s

“Now there’s a girl who’s comfortable in her own skin,” my father-in-law said about my daughter, his granddaughter. She was about one year old and we were watching her bounce happily in her high chair, egg smeared across both cheeks as she shoved pieces of fritter into her mouth.

I realised with pride it was true: she was comfortable. My pride was followed quickly by unease. How long had it been since I could say I was comfortable with myself?

There are supporters and then there was the Bulgarian Marin Levidzhov, who died this week aged 62

Ask any Manchester United fan of a certain age what 26 May 1999 means to them, and they will tell you the date has marked them for life. It was the night injury-time goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær sealed United’s 2-1 comeback in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou. It was also the night the life of one United fan in Bulgaria, who has died this week at the age of 62, changed for ever.

That supporter was born Marin Zdravkov Levidzhov in Svishtov, a town on the Danube with a population of 22,000. Growing up in communist Bulgaria adoring football, he dreamed of changing his name to … Manchester United. To claim the name of a football club from the capitalist west, however, was mission impossible. Had Marin tried to do so before the fall of the regime, he would almost certainly have ended up in jail.

Sunbathers return to sands immediately north of Gaza with feelings of relief and loss after killings here two years ago

• Gaza ceasefire – live updates

From the clean soft sands of Zikim beach or its sky-blue and turquoise waters, where on Thursday waves gently lapped against the thighs of cheery middle-aged women, one can see a different world.

Looking past the tall iron fence that marks the end of the beach, the outlines of what is left of Gaza’s Beit Lahia resort are clearly visible less than 2 miles south down the coast – as are the watchful Israeli destroyers out to sea.

Weekend storm devastated two villages and displaced more than 1,500 people in the south-western part of the state

Authorities in Alaska are evacuating hundreds from villages on the state’s south-west coast that were inundated by the remnants of a typhoon last weekend, in one of the “most significant” airlifts in the state’s history.

Over the weekend, the remnants of Typhoon Halong hit remote communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, in the south-western part of the state, decimating two small villages and displacing more than 1,500 people.

Xbox’s portable console combines the openness of PC gaming and Microsoft’s desire for you to play its titles anywhere – but it doesn’t come cheap or without hitches

The ROG Xbox Ally X, the handheld console collaboration from Asus and Microsoft, is an impressive, yet expensive, piece of gaming tech. The pricier of the two portable gaming devices dropping on 16 October, the all-black ROG Xbox Ally X will cost you a cool £799 (€899/$999/A$1599) to sample its splendour. (The less powerful ROG Xbox Ally, which comes in white, will run you £499/€599/$599/A$999.) Thankfully, the pricier option has said splendour in spades.

I’ve put the ROG Xbox Ally X through its paces for the last few weeks, playing indie darlings and massive role-playing games throughout my apartment. Though the price tag is certainly a shocker (the Steam Deck OLED, a direct competitor, costs £479/€569/$549/A$899 for its cheaper model), the power packed into this comparatively smaller frame (291 x 122 x 51mm) is like nothing the portable gaming market has seen before.

The Trinidadians were believed to be on a boat Donald Trump alleged was carrying drugs from Venezuela to the US

Police in Trinidad and Tobago are investigating whether two citizens were among six people killed in a US strike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela.

Without providing evidence, Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the strike killed six “narcoterrorists” in international waters, allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela to the United States.

The NFL’s great tactician was meant to elevate North Carolina football. Instead, his rigid ways, fraying staff and tone-deafness have made the Tar Heels a cautionary tale

It used to be that there was no stronger brand in football than a “Bill Belichick-coached” outfit. For most of his nearly 50 years in the pros, the phrase connoted teams that prepared for every scenario, executed directions to perfection and met all the moments in between to secure victory time and again. But since the NFL turned its back on Belichick, who stepped down to the college ranks and took the head job at North Carolina seemingly for appearances, the Belichick-coached team slogan has become less of a mark of excellence than a bright warning label for a program run amok.

The concerns at this juncture, still short of midway through Belichick’s freshman season, are overwhelming. The misleading record, the stark images of home fans deserting a blowout loss to Clemson before half-time, the dramatic talent deficit – those were predictable outcomes for a septuagenarian taskmaster trying his hand at coaching college kids. Belichick isn’t simply out of his element. He looks for all the world to be asleep at the wheel, too.

Swimmer who represented Ireland at three Olympics says controversial event provides chance to set up financial future

When Shane Ryan agreed to participate in the Enhanced Games – where performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged – he did not agonise: “I was like, you know what, let me do something for me for once. Let me make some money.”

The swimmer represented Ireland at three Olympics, in 2016, 2020 and 2024, but all those years of training and sacrifice were not paying the bills, so this week he announced he would compete at the controversial sporting event.

As the harvest season begins, attacks on Palestinian farmers and their land are spiralling. The words of peace following the Gaza ceasefire ring hollow

Last Monday, when the US president, Donald Trump, addressed the Knesset alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, my compatriot lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I raised a banner calling them to “Recognise Palestine”. We were brutally expelled by force from the parliament’s plenum, revealing the fragile state of the supposed “only democracy in the Middle East”. How can Trump and Netanyahu speak of peace in the Middle East without recognition of the people deprived for decades of their basic liberties and rights under vicious occupation?

Nowhere is the deceit more clear than in the occupied West Bank. There, the words of peace are but a weak and distant voice, but the horrifying sounds of settler violence and terror still echo loudly. More than 30 occurrences of settler violence against Palestinians have been documented since the announcement of Trump’s 20-point plan at the end of September, including physical assaults, theft of agricultural produce and torching of vehicles and property.

Dr Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset, representing the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) since 2019

Researchers on expedition to Dauan Island heard two distinct frog calls in the rain and ‘sure enough, they were species new to science’

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Three new animal species – two frogs and a gecko – have been discovered on a remote island in Australia’s north.

The animals were found on Dauan Island, a 3 sq km island in the far northern Torres Strait that is dominated by boulder fields.

Newspaper federation says ‘traffic killer’ feature violates legislation and threatens to destroy media diversity

Italian news publishers are calling for an investigation into Google’s AI Overviews, arguing that the search engine’s AI-generated summaries feature is a “traffic killer” that threatens their survival.

FIEG, the Italian federation of newspaper publishers, said it has submitted a formal complaint to Agcom, Italy’s communications watchdog.

Taxpayers have been footing bill for loss-making company since April as minister acknowledges threat of EU tariffs

The cost of taking control of British Steel has risen to £235m, the UK government has said, as it acknowledged concern over the threat of EU tariffs that could significantly harm the business.

The government passed emergency legislation in April to take control of British Steel amid fears that its Chinese owner, Jingye Steel, was planning to walk away from its Scunthorpe steelworks.

Market-leading music streamer collaborating with the Sony, Universal and Warner music groups to create new AI features

Spotify has announced it is teaming up with the world’s biggest music companies to develop “responsible” artificial intelligence products that respect artists’ copyright.

The market-leading music streamer is collaborating with the Sony, Universal and Warner music groups – whose combined rosters feature artists including Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift – to create new AI features.

As Manchester’s finest turns 60, with new film Saipan coming soon, we rank the British comedy hero’s best big-screen performances, from Tropic Thunder and Mindhorn to Philomena and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. A-Ha!

Steve Coogan entered the unofficial British comedy hall of fame at the tender age of 30, when he joined four of the Pythons and the likes of Stephen Fry and Victoria Wood in this largely forgotten version of the classic children’s tale. Bedecked in a long scarf and wearing rimless specs, he puts in a respectably twitchy turn as Mole alongside Eric Idle’s Rat and Terry Jones’s Toad.

Luxembourg — one of the world’s smallest nations — has positioned itself at the forefront of asteroid mining. But extracting minerals and precious metals from space throws up all sorts of ethical and legal questions, such as who can lay claim to an asteroid and all of its extractive wealth, and should space benefit “all of humankind”, as the international treaties signed in the 60s intended? Nevertheless, Luxembourg has lured a multinational cast of space entrepreneurs with the potential to invest in the promise of an untapped trillion dollar industry. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out how Luxembourg became a global hub for space mining, and whether it’s promised ‘gold rush’ will ever materialize

The Titans’ firing of Brian Callahan has kicked off the annual bloodletting. With several clubs’ playoff hopes already in peril, there are toasty seats across the league

The Tennessee Titans’ firing Brian Callahan this week signaled the unofficial start of the coaching carousel.

Six weeks into the season, a league built for parity is finding there is little to go around. Nearly half (14) of the league’s teams this season are two games over .500. Three others have winning records and another three (the Chiefs, Panthers and Commanders) are 3-3 with an upward trajectory.

House speaker says he didn’t know the Young Republicans chat members and continues to shirk blame for the US government shutdown

• US government shutdown stretches as progressives reject Republicans’ healthcare promises

• Vance brushes off racist texts by adults in Republican group chat as ‘what kids do’

Mike Johnson said that he spoke with John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican, on Wednesday.

“He offered to Chuck Schumer a vote on Obamacare subsidies, and Schumer said no,” Johnson revealed, saying that Schumer wanted “a guaranteed outcome”.

Indian-American Ashley Tellis allegedly obtained US military data and passed envelopes to Chinese officials

A prominent Indian-American academic and former US government adviser has been arrested and charged with the unlawful detention of national security information, including thousands of pages of top secret documents that were found at his home in Virginia.

Ashley Tellis, 64, who served on the national security council of the former US president George W Bush and is credited for helping to negotiate the US-India nuclear deal, was arrested and charged over the weekend.